The museum, French president Jacques Chirac’s grand finale before he leaves office next May, opened its collection of primitive arts from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas to the public last week.

Ixis is funding a documentary portal for the museum to put its collections on the internet. It will also fund a programme on world music, anthropology and languages. In true banker style, however, the bank justified the sponsorship as reflecting its own values of “creativity, research and innovation.”

Perhaps Ixis could go a step further and suggest to Chirac that it should join the list of banks advising the government on the troubled Suez/Gaz de France merger?